Before You Go. D.C. can get really hot in summer, but this will be late March -- which, in D.C., means the peak of the cherry blossoms. The Washington Post is predicting daytime temperatures in the 50s for Thursday, the 60s for the rest of the weekend, and the high 40s for nighttime throughout. You won't need a jacket, but there are "AM Showers" predicted for Sunday. It shouldn't affect that day's game.
Washington is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your clocks, digital or otherwise.
Tickets. From their 2005 arrival through the end of 2011, the Nats were terrible. But they won the National League Eastern Division in 2012 (no Washington baseball team had been in first place late in the season since 1945, and none had finished in 1st place since 1933), 2014, 2016 and 2017.
As a result, attendance is good: Last year, they averaged 31,620 fans per game, just off their 2015 season average of 32,343, a record for Washington baseball. The fans' tendency to wear the team's red caps and red alternate home jerseys has gotten the ballpark nicknamed The Sea of Red.
So getting tickets for a baseball game in Washington is a bigger problem than it's been since the 1924-25 Pennant-winning Senators, especially since Thursday will be their home opener. At least you don't have to worry about the security needed for when the President throws out the ceremonial first ball: Trump didn't dare show up the last 2 years for the fear of being booed, and he's even more despised now.
(He got cheered at Super Bowl LI and the 2016 and 2018 Army-Navy Games, and at a NASCAR race, but football and auto racing fans are more likely to be conservative anyway, and he did get a lot of boos at the Super Bowl, too.)
A lot of New Yorkers & New Jerseyans may have the same idea as you – and many of them are federal government employees or college students already living and working in the D.C. area. In fact, the transient nature of the federal government was a big reason the Senators never made it: People came in from places that had teams, and rooted for them, not the Senators; only went to Griffith Stadium and its successor RFK Stadium to see their hometown teams; and rarely went back home having been converted to Senators fans. The Nats seem to have the same problem, and it remains to be seen if winning will prove to be a long-term cure.
Dugout Boxes will cost $108. Infield Box, $78. Baseline Box, down the foul lines, $81. Baseline Reserved, $68. Left & Right Field Corners, $44. Outfield Reserved, $39. Left Field & Right Field Mezzanine, $43. Gallery (upper deck), $35, and Upper Gallery, $23. Scoreboard Pavilion, $41. Right Field Terrace, $25.
Getting There. Getting to Washington is fairly easy. However, if you have a car, I recommend using it, and getting a hotel either downtown or inside the Capital Beltway, because driving in Washington is roughly (good choice of words there) as bad as driving in New York.
It's 229 miles by road from Times Square to downtown Washington, and 238 miles from Citi Field to Nationals Park. If you're not "doing the city," but just going to the game, take the New Jersey Turnpike all the way down to the Delaware Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. the Twin Span), across the Delaware River into the State of, well, Delaware. This should take about 2 hours, not counting a rest stop.
The Delaware Memorial Bridge
Once you get over the Twin Span – the New Jersey-bound span opened in 1951, the Delaware-bound one was added in 1968 – follow the signs carefully, as you'll be on Interstate 295, and you'll be faced with multiple ramp signs for Interstates 95, 295 and 495, as well as for US Routes 13 and 40 and State Route 9. You want I-95 South, and to follow the signs that will say "Baltimore."
At said State Line, I-95 changes from the Delaware Turnpike to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, and you'll be on it for about an hour (unless you want to make another rest stop, either the Chesapeake House or the Maryland House) and passing through Baltimore, before seeing signs for I-895 and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, Exit 62.
From here, you'll pass through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. Take I-895 to Exit 4, and you'll be on Maryland Route 295 South, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Crossing into the District of Columbia, M-295 will become the Anacostia Freeway. Take Exit 3B for South Capitol Street East, go over the Frederick Douglass Bridge over the Anacostia River, and you'll be right there.
If all goes well -- getting out of New York City and into downtown Baltimore okay, reasonable traffic, just the one rest stop, no trouble with your car -- the whole trip should take about 4½ hours.
Washington is too close to fly, just as flying from New York to Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, doesn't really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train. So forget about flying from JFK, LaGuardia or Newark to Reagan National or Dulles International Airport. (John Foster Dulles was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State.)
The train is a very good option, if you can afford it. Washington's Union Station is at 50 Massachusetts Avenue NE, within sight of the Capitol Building. But Amtrak is expensive. They figure, "You hate to fly, you don't want to deal with airports, and Greyhound sucks, so we can charge whatever we want."
New York to Washington will run you $192 round-trip, and that's if you take the regular Northeast Corridor, instead of Acela Express (formerly the Metroliner), which would be $346 round-trip. And that's before you add anything like Business Class or, God forbid, Amtrak's overmicrowaved food. Still, it's less than 3 hours if you take the Acela Express, and 3 hours and 40 minutes if you take a regular Northeast Corridor train.
Fortunately, Greyhound has rectified a longtime problem. They now use the parking deck behind Union Station as their Washington terminal, instead of the one they built 6 blocks away (and thus 6 blocks from the nearest Metro station), in the ghetto, back in the late 1960s. So neither safety nor aesthetics will be an issue any longer.
Round-trip fare on Greyhound is $118, although it can drop to as low as $50 with advanced purchase, and it takes about 4 1/2 hours, and usually includes a rest stop about halfway, either on the New Jersey Turnpike in South Jersey or on the Delaware Turnpike.
Once In the City. Founded on July 16, 1790, and usually referred to as "The National City" in its early days, and "Washington City" in the 19th Century, the city was named, of course, for George Washington, although its "Georgetown" neighborhood was named for his predecessor as our commander-in-chief, King George III of England.
Its "state," the District of Columbia, comes from Columbia, a historical and poetic name used for America, which was accepted as its female personification until the early 20th Century, when the Statue of Liberty began to take its place in the public consciousness. "Columbia" was derived from the man who "discovered America," Christopher Columbus, and places throughout the Western Hemisphere -- from the capital of South Carolina to the river that separates Washington State from Oregon, from the Ivy League university in Manhattan to the South American nation that produces coffee and cocaine, are named for him.
Like a lot of cities, Washington suffered from "white flight," so that, while the population within the city limits has seriously shrunk, from 800,000 in 1950 to 680,000 today; the metro area went from 2.9 million to double that, 6.1 million. The District was 71 percent white in 1940, but is now 51 percent black, 36 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic and 4 percent Asian. Overall, the metro area, including Maryland and Virginia suburbs, is about 46 percent white, 26 percent black, 17 percent Hispanic and 11 percent Asian.
As a result of this growth, the roads leading into the District, and the one going around it, the Capital Beltway, Interstate 495, are rammed with cars. Finally, someone wised up and said, "Let's build a subway," and in 1976, the Metro opened.
That metropolitan growth was boosted by the Maryland and Virginia suburbs building housing and shopping areas for federal-government workers. And, perhaps more than any other metro area, the poor blacks who once lived in the city have reached the middle-class and built their own communities (especially to the east, in Maryland's Prince Georges County). The metro area now has about 6 million residents -- and that's not including the metro area of nearby Baltimore, which would boost it to nearly 9 million and make it the 4th-largest "market" in the country, behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and slightly ahead of the San Francisco Bay Area.
So, if you want to say "the area" has a National League team, the Nats, and an American League team, the Baltimore Orioles, that's not quite correct, but it is understandable, especially since Maryland Commuter Rail (MARC) does link the 2 cities, and for much of the major league interregnum between the Senators' departure in 1971 and the Nats' arrival in 2005, people living in D.C. -- especially part-timers who worked in, or media personalities who covered, the federal government would head up the railroad, I-95 or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and watch the O's at Memorial Stadium, and then at Camden Yards.
The NBA's Bullets moved from Baltimore to Washington in 1973, and became the Wizards in 1997, and Baltimore still follows them. The NHL's Washington Capitals began play in 1974, and Baltimore has adopted them. However, during the NFL interregnum between Robert Irsay's theft of the Colts in 1984 and the arrival of the Ravens in 1996, Baltimore never accepted the Redskins as their team, despite 2 Super Bowl wins in that period.
Still, the Nats-O's rivalry matters very little to Baltimore, and while it matters a bit more to people in the Washington area, given the choice, they'd rather beat the Mets or the Phillies than the Orioles.
When you get to Union Station, pick up copies of the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. The Post is a great paper with a very good sports section, and in just 6 seasons (now into a 7th) has covered the Nats very well, despite the 1972-2004 era when D.C. had no MLB team of its own. As a holdover from that era, it still covers the Orioles well. The Sun is only an okay paper, but its sports section is nearly as good as the Post's, and their coverage of their town's hometown baseball team rivals that of any paper in the country -- including the great coverage that The New York Times and
Daily News give to the Yankees and Mets.
Do not buy The Washington Times. It was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1982 as a replacement for the bankrupt Washington Star as the area's conservative equivalent to the "liberal"
Post. (That's a laugh: The Post has George Will, Michael Gerson and Kathleen Parker as columnists, and also had the late Charles Krauthammer.)
Under editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden, the Times was viciously right-wing, "reporting" every rumor about Democrats as if they were established, proven fact, and giving Republicans a free pass. Moon's "Unification Church" sold the paper in 2009, and Pruden retired the year before. But it has cut about 40 percent of its employees, and has dropped not only its Sunday edition but also its sports section.
And now, there's another paper, the Washington Examiner, owned by the same company as the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, and it is so far to the right it makes The Washington Times look like the Daily Kos. It is a truly loony publication, where Michael Barone of the American Enterprise Institute and Byron York of National Review are considered moderates.
So avoid the loonies and the Moonies, and stick with the Post. Even if you don't agree with my politics, you're going down to D.C. for baseball, and the Post's sports section kicks ass.
Downtown Washington, D.C.
Notice the lack of tall buildings.
The John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,
D.C.'s City Hall, and, effectively, also its State Capitol Building
Remember: On street signs, 1st Street is written out as FIRST, and I Street is written out as EYE, so as to avoid confusion. And for the same reason, since I and J were virtually indistinguishable in written script when D.C. was founded in 1800, there is no J Street. Once the letters are expended, they go to to 2- and then 3-syllable words beginning with the sequential letters: Adams, Bryant, Clifton, etc.
ZIP Codes for D.C. start with the digits 20, with 202 through 205 serving the federal government, and 201 serving Dulles Airport, even though it's in Virginia. For the Maryland suburbs, it's 206 through 209 and 215. For the Virginia suburbs, it's 220 to 223. The Area Code for D.C. is 202, with 301 serving the Maryland suburbs, overlaid by 240; and 703 serving the Virginia suburbs, overlaid by 571.
D.C. is not exactly close to the Atlantic Coast. There are 3 places where area natives like to go to the beach: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, 120 miles to the east; Ocean City, Maryland, 146 miles to the southeast; and Virginia Beach, Virginia, 209 miles to the southeast.
Make a left on Half Street, and in one more block, there is Nationals Park. From Union Station to the ballpark, via subway and then foot, should take 25 minutes, about as fast as it does to get from Midtown Manhattan to Yankee Stadium, and slightly less than to get to Citi Field.
You're likely to walk in at the center field gate, at N & Half Streets. There, you will see 3 statues, of Washington baseball legends Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Frank Howard. I'll elaborate in "Team History Displays." On your way in, you might also notice the Racing Presidents, on whom I'll also elaborate later, dancing and greeting fans.
The longest home run at Griffith Stadium is hard to figure: Although Mickey Mantle was credited with a 565-foot blast in 1953, every quoted eyewitness confirmed that the ball ricocheted off a scoreboard at the back of the left-field bleachers before flying into a backyard a block away. Since you're only supposed to measure from home plate to where the ball first hit something, that was more like a 460-foot homer; still, it's quite a drive, and it was the only ball ever to clear those bleachers in the 61-year history of professional baseball on that site.
Even Josh Gibson, while playing home games there for the Negro Leagues' Homestead Grays (who divided their home games between Washington and Pittsburgh -- Homestead is a town outside Pittsburgh), apparently didn't achieve the feat. Gibson may have hit a longer homer at Griffith, and so might Babe Ruth, but there simply aren't specifics as to when, or to how long.
Scoreboard, complete with "Curly W" analog clock
Every year, on the 4th of July, the Nationals play 1 of 2 morning starts in Major League Baseball every season. First pitch is at 11:05 AM. The other morning start of the season, also at 11:05, and a much older tradition, is the Boston Red Sox, on Patriots Day, the 3rd Monday in April, the legal anniversary of the nearby Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, so their game can end in time for traffic to thin out, making it easier for the Boston Marathon to go up Boylston Street a few blocks away.
Nationals Park has hosted a Mass by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008; concerts by Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift; and the 2015 NHL Winter Classic, in which the Capitals beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-2. It will host the 2018 MLB All-Star Game, the 1st time D.C. will have hosted it since RFK Stadium in 1969.
Food. Very good. Not only do they serve good hot dogs and other standard ballpark fare, but "Frozen Rope" (Section 135) serves good ice cream, and they also have that "futuristic" ice cream known as Dippin' Dots. The Red Loft Bar, in the second deck in left field, is their version of a McFadden's. They serve pretzels in the shape of the script "W" logo that they inherited from the "New Senators."
And the Nats do not have to look up I-95 at Boog's Barbecue in Baltimore, Bull's Barbecue in Philly, Brother Jimmy's at Yankee Stadium or Blue Smoke at Citi Field, and feel any envy. In the right field corner is their own Blue Smoke stand. I kid you not: They serve the best piece of ballpark food I have ever eaten, a big hunk of meat named "the Rough Rider" in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. Eating that gave me more pleasure than any ballpark experience this side of the Aaron Boone homer. It's $12, but it will be worth every flick of the tongue.
Guess what, Met fans? Nationals Park has a Shake Shack! It's under the right-field stands. And, while I haven't been there since they opened it in 2011, I'll bet they manage the line better than whoever runs Citi Field does.
But, according to a recent Thrillist article on the best food at each big league ballpark, the best food at Nationals Park is the chili half-smoke hot dog, available at Ben's Chili Bowl stands at Sections 109, 140 and 317. Apparently, chili is a big deal in D.C. (I knew it was in Texas, Arizona, and even Cincinnati, with its weird style of putting it over spaghetti, but Washington?)
Team History Displays. The "old" Washington Senators played from 1901 to 1960, and moved to become the Minnesota Twins. The "new" Senators played from 1961 to 1971, and moved to become the Texas Rangers. Both were in the American League. The Expos/Nationals franchise of the National League has some history, but until 2012 -- 8 full seasons after the move -- it was all in Montreal.
Nevertheless, they hang signs honoring their 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017 NL Eastern Division Championships on the facing of the right field stands. There is no notation of the 1981 (and, unofficially, 1994) NL East titles won by the Expos. There are also tributes to the earlier history of Washington baseball. A pedestrian path leading into the south entrance is marked with certain dates:
* 1859: The birth of Washington's 1st organized baseball team, the Olympic Club.
* 1910: President William Howard Taft becoming the 1st President to throw out the 1st ball to start a season.
* 1924: The city's only World Series win so far.
* 1937: The city's 1st MLB All-Star Game. (This was also the year of the arrival of the NFL's Redskins.)
* 1948: I don't know what this date represents.
* 1961: The Old Senators leave, and the New Senators arrive.
* 1971: The New Senators leave.
* 2005: The Nationals arrive.
* 2008: Nationals Park opens.
Walter Johnston statue
Outside the north gate, you will see 3 statues: Walter Johnson, "the Big Train," the great pitcher for the Old Senators from 1907 to 1927, the game's former all-time strikeout leader with 3,508, and still its all-time shutout leader with 113; Josh Gibson, the catcher for the D.C.-based Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, the man so powerful he was known as "the Black Babe Ruth"– although some black fans suggested that Ruth be called "the White Josh Gibson"– and Frank Howard, the slugger for the New Senators known as "Hondo,""the Monster" (he was 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds in his prime, and was also played basketball at Ohio State and was drafted by the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors) and, due to D.C.'s status, "the Capital Punisher."
Josh Gibson statue
All 3 statues are meant to suggest motion: Johnson pitching, Gibson and Howard swinging their bats.
You might remember Howard as a coach for both New York teams and, briefly in 1983, the Mets' manager, before Davey Johnson came in and turned the franchise around. Howard, along with George W. Bush, threw out a ceremonial first ball before the 1st Nationals game in 2005. He is now 80 year old, and, a longtime friend of the Steinbrenner family (George's widow Joan is, like Howard, an Ohio State graduate), he has worked for the Yankees as a player development instructor since 2000.
Frank Howard statue
The Washington Baseball Ring of Honor, patterned after the multi-sport Hall of Stars at RFK Stadium, was erected at Nationals Park in 2010, and is on the facing of the upper deck. It honors these 10 figures from the "Old Senators," all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame: Pitcher, manager and owner Clark Griffith, pitcher Walter Johnson, 2nd baseman/manager Bucky Harris, left fielder Henry "Heinie" Manush, right fielder Sam Rice, shortstop/manager Joe Cronin, left fielder Goose Goslin, catcher Rick Ferrell, pitcher Early Wynn and 3rd baseman Harmon Killebrew.
Left fielder/1st baseman Frank Howard (not in the Hall of Fame) is the only figure from the new Senators honored, unless you count Bucky Harris' work as a scout for them. It also honors 6 Homestead Grays, all Hall-of-Famers: Catcher Josh Gibson, 1st baseman Walter "Buck" Leonard, center fielder James "Cool Papa" Bell, pitcher Ray Brown, 3rd baseman Ernest "Jud" Wilson and outfielder/manager/owner Cumberland Posey (who had the retroactively obscene nickname "Cum").
Frank Howard
And it honors the 3 Hall-of-Famers from the Nats' Montreal Expos years, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines. Frank Robinson, manager of the Expos/Nationals franchise during the switch, is in the Hall of Fame (for his accomplishments as a player), and he was placed on the Ring of Honor. So was catcher Ivan Rodriguez, even though he only played the last 2 seasons of his career with the Nats.
The one real Nats player thus far honored is left fielder Jayson Werth -- and everyone, even Phillies fans, remember him more, if not fondly due to the intra-Division team switch, as a Phillie, anyway.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/411346/2010-08-09-ring-of-honor.jpg)
This is also true of New Senators Gil Hodges (he managed them between retiring as a Dodger and Met player and becoming the Mets' manager), Chuck Hinton and George Selkirk (the former Yankee outfielder had been their general manager).
The old Hall of Stars display at RFK Stadium
Johnson -- the highest-ranked pitcher at Number 4 -- Goslin and Wynn were the Senators named in 1999 to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players. So were Grays Gibson, Leonard, and Bell; and Oscar Charleston, briefly with the Grays but better known for playing for other teams.
The Expos retired Number 8 for Gary Carter, Number 10 for both Rusty Staub and Andre Dawson, and Number 30 for Tim Raines. All of these numbers were returned to circulation after the move, and, except for the Number 42 retired for all of baseball for Jackie Robinson, the Nats have no retired numbers.
Nor do they yet have any Hall-of-Famers of their own, unless you want to count the aforementioned Frank Robinson and Ivan Rodriguez, each of whose Hall of Fame credentials were stamped before they had anything to do with the Expos/Nationals franchise.
There is no trophy given to the annual winner of the Nats-Orioles Interleague "Beltway Series." Lucky for the Nats: If there was one, the Nats would have won it only in 2007 and 2018; the O's in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016; and there were ties in 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2017. In individual games, the O's lead 39-31, and 7-2-4 in seasons.
Baltimore Sun cartoonist Mike Ricigliano's interpretation
Now that Bryce Harper has signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, 8 years after Jayson Werth went the other way, the Nats-Phils rivalry is going to be nastier than Redskins-Eagles, Bullets/Wizards-76ers, or D.C. United/Philly Union has ever been. The Phils lead 134-126 -- of course, this counts only games against the franchise since it's been in Washington, not before that, in Montreal.
In 2013, Frederic J. Frommer (travel expert and son of travel icon and Yankee Fan Harvey Frommer) and Bob Schieffer (CBS News legend and D.C. resident) collaborated on You Gotta Have Heart: A History of Washington Baseball from 1859 to the 2012 National Legue East Champions. The same year, Elliott Smith and Bob Carpenter (no relation to the family long owning the Phillies) published Beltway Boys: Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and the Rise of the Nationals.
Looking for team DVDs? You're out of luck: All they had on my 2009 visit was a commemoration of their 1st season back in Washington, 2005. They can't even sell official World Series highlight films, like the Mets' package of the 1969 and 1986 films, because the only Senators' World Series, in 1924 (won), '25 (lost) and '33 (lost), came before MLB started making official highlight films in 1943. The Nationals franchise never made it to a World Series in Montreal, and they've never yet won a postseason series in Washington.
So there's nothing celebrating anything like that, because, so far, there's nothing like that. If you’ll forgive the near-Yogiism. The closest they come is Bryce Begins, a DVD on Harper's early career (which, for the moment, is all he's got). Why him, and not Strasburg? As Harper himself might say, "That's a clown question, bro."
During the Game. You do not need to fear wearing your Met gear to Nationals Park. Despite the boisterousness of Washington fans when they watch their NFL Redskins and soccer's D.C. United, there's a far more relaxed atmosphere at Nats games.
That could, of course, be due to the fact that, until 2012, you had to be over 70 to remember when a Washington baseball team was in a Pennant race. Just as George Washington was said to be "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," Washington the city was long said to be "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." The old Senators finished 1 game behind the Detroit Tigers in 1945, and that was basically their only Pennant race after 1933.
The new Senators had just 1 winning season, a 4th-place finish in 1969. That being the era of the Vietnam War and race riots -- the one after Martin Luther King was assassinated delayed the 1968 opener -- it was said that Washington was now "Last in war, last in peace, and last in the American League."
When the Redskins were winning, their fans were really loud, but they didn't really give anybody outside of Dallas Cowboys fans a hard time, unless provoked (and New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles fans, a short trip down I-95 or Amtrak, have been known to do that). Nor do the current, Alexander Ovechkin-led, Washington Capitals generate much ire: Their fans don't much like the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins, but, as their 2009, '11, '12, '13 and '15 Playoff series with the Rangers proved, they generally leave fans of the 3 New York Tri-State Area teams alone.
A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" put Nats fans smack in the middle, 15th out of 30, probably due to their lack of a history of fan incidents. They claim that Nats fans' top 3 priorities are:
1. Networking. (Not surprising due to government employees & lobbyists attending.)
2. Shake Shack.
3. Ben's Chili Bowl because the Shake Shack line was too long. (The author's addition, not mine.)
In other words, not unlike attending a Met game these last couple of seasons! But with Ben's standing in for Blue Smoke.
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Expos/Nationals franchise, but the Nats are not commemorating that. As far as they're concerned, they are a Washington team that began in 2005.
All 3 games are promotions: The Thursday game is Opening Day, and will be giving away a team schedule T-shirt. The Saturday game will feature the giveaway of an In-Park Live Radio Lanyard. And the Sunday game is a promotion, Pups in the Park Day, so there will be dogs in the stadium.
The Nats hold auditions to sing the National Anthem, instead of having a regular singer. During the Anthem, when the line, "O say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave" is reached, some fans, trained in baseball as Oriole fans during the capital's 1972-2004 MLB interregnum, still shout "O!" I've also heard this done at a Capitals-Devils game at the Capital One Arena and a Maryland-Rutgers football game at Maryland Stadium.
It's bad enough when they do it in Baltimore, and I realize that the University of Maryland football team would be nothing without players -- and fans -- from the Baltimore area. But doing it at a home game for the Washington baseball team, beyond being offensive and disrespectful, makes no freaking sense. They need to stop. You think Baltimore fans would accept hearing "Hail to the Redskins" when the Ravens score a touchdown?
The Nats have a fight song, "Welcome Home to the Nationals." It's not exactly as stirring as "Hail to the Redskins," or even "Meet the Mets." After "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th Inning Stretch, they play "Take On Me" by A-ha. Their postgame victory song is "Raise Your Glass" by Pink, even though she's from Philadelphia. In tribute to their Navy Yard location, they blast a submarine's horn for each Nats home run.
Hugh Kaufman
Hugh Kaufman is "the Rubber Chicken Man." A Washington baseball fan since the days of the Old Senators, he waves a rubber chicken over the Nats' dugout to ward off bad luck. On occasion, he's made chicken soup (a.k.a. "Jewish penicillin") to give to sick or injured players.
Screech
The Nats have a mascot named Screech, a bald eagle. Sounds natural enough. They also have the Presidents Race. In a takeoff of the Milwaukee Brewers' Sausage Race, in the middle of the 4th inning, the 4 guys wearing the Mount Rushmore President costumes, with the huge foam caricature heads, break out of a gate in center field, run to the right field corner, and down the 1st-base line, where the first to break the tape is the winner.
Over their period costumes, they wear Nats jerseys: GEORGE 1, TOM 3, ABE 16 and TEDDY 26, for their places in the chronological order of Presidents. Screech is the referee, in case anybody tries any funny business.
Teddy, Abe, Tom, Bill and George
Which leads to, literally, a running gag: "Teddy never wins." Sometimes he leads and trips. Sometimes, like the minor-league mascots who race kids around the bases, he gets distracted, for example when players from the opposing Atlanta Braves caught his attention in the first game at Nationals Park in April 2008.
Sometimes he gets sabotaged, as in June 2008, when, in an Interleague game with the nearby Orioles, the visiting Baltimore Bird tripped him just short of the finish line. (In a special grudge-match race the next day, Teddy outraced the Bird, but it was announced that this wouldn't count in the victory totals). Sometimes he just plain screws up: At the final game at RFK Stadium in 2007, a lot of people figured he'd finally be allowed to win, and the other 3 stayed back to "throw" the race, but Teddy went to the nearly-finished Nationals Park instead.
And sometimes... he cheats. (No doubt the real TR would have been appalled at all of this, but especially at the cheating.) When I went, Teddy got on a motorized scooter (leading me to yell, "Holy cow!" in memory of Phil "the Scooter" Rizzuto), and won the race that way. Naturally, "Honest Abe," who finished 2nd, complained to Screech, who declared Abe the winner by default.
However, on October 3, 2012, the season finale, in honor of the Nats finally winning the Division, Teddy was allowed to win. And he got on a winning streak: He was allowed to win all 3 races at Nats home games in the NL Division Series.
This seemed to have finally broken the spell: Teddy won a few more races in 2013, and actually won the title (most races won in a season) in 2014 and 2016. Abe won in 2008, '09, '10, '13 and '15; George won in 2007, '12 and '18; Tom won in 2006, tied with Abe for the title in '11, and tied with George for the title in '17.
When I visited on July 26, 2009 (a 3-2 Nats win over the San Diego Padres in 10 innings), the huge-headed Presidents were dancing outside the north gate, while "oldies" played over the stadium loudspeakers. This was bad enough, until "Billie Jean" was played – this was within days of the death of Michael Jackson – and, cue The Awkward Moment, the guy dressed as Jefferson danced right into my line of sight as soon as Jacko got to the words, "The kid is not my son!" I also noticed that the costumes, all four of them, were filthy. Doesn't the club wash them?
In 2013, a 5th contestant was introduced: William Howard Taft (BILL 27). Why him? He's the only President to also be a Supreme Court Justice. As a result, he was one of the few former Presidents to live in D.C. after leaving the White House. And, along with John F. Kennedy, he is 1 of only 2 Presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (There is a JACK 35 character, resembling Kennedy, but so far he hasn't raced.)
But I'm guessing the main reason is that, on April 14, 1910, Taft became the 1st President to throw out the ceremonial first ball on Opening Day, starting the tradition. (The story that, on the same day, he started the tradition of the 7th Inning Stretch has long since been debunked: That tradition was already long in place.) Bill won his first race on May 11, followed the next day by Teddy winning for the 1st time since the preceding season's Playoffs.
In 2015, Calvin Coolidge (CAL 30) was introduced, but lasted only that season. In 2016, Herbert Hoover (HERBIE 31) was introduced, but was also retired after 1 season. The next President in line would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FRANK 32), but since FDR had polio, seeing him run might be in poor taste. So for 2017, they went back to their roots, not just running only "The Rushmore Four," but having Teddy not win a single race during the season. Teddy won just once in 2018.
As of the start of the 2019 season, Abe is the all-time leader with 343 race wins, followed by George with 290, Tom with 261, Teddy with 83 (all since October 2012), Bill with 46, Cal with 12 and Herbie with 10. Not usually in the race, but having "won" and thus figuring into the stats, Screech is credited with 3 wins, and Jayson Werth with 1. Or, to put it another way: Abe has won 33 percent of the races, George 28, Tom 25, Teddy 8, Bill 4, and Cal and Herbie 1 each.
After the Game. Although there are condos adjacent to the stadium, it's not exactly a neighborhood hopping with nightlife, in case you're looking for a postgame meal (or even just a pint). At 301 Water Street, 3 blocks east, there's Agua 301 and Osteria Morini, but those are expensive; and Ice Cream Jubilee, which may not be open after weeknight games.
Willie's Brew & Que, Bluejacket, and English chicken chain Nando's (as in, "I went out for a cheeky Nando's") are at 300 Tingley Street, also 3 blocks east. Leo's Wings & Pizza is at 7 N Street SW, across South Capitol Street, but that's a nasty intersection to cross on foot. (Washington's drivers are every bit as bad as New York's and Boston's.)
If you're only down for 1 game, the best thing to do is to get back to Union Station, grab a bite there, and hop on your train; or, if you're driving, just hit one of the rest areas on the way back up I-95.
If you're staying for the whole series, your best bet may be to head downtown, near the Verizon Center (home of the Wizards and Capitals) at 6th & F Streets NW, on the edge of Chinatown. You'll find a lot of good (and maybe one or two great) nightspots there. I recommend Fado, an Irish-pub-themed place nearby, at 808 7th Street NW. Metro: Red, Yellow or Green Line to Gallery Place. (One of several around the country, including the Philadelphia one I've also been to; they're the same company as Tigin, which has outlets at JFK Airport and Stamford, Connecticut.)
If you came to Washington by Amtrak, and it's a night game, and you're not spending the night, you've got a problem: The last train of the night leaves Union Station at 10:10 PM (and arrives at New York's Penn Station at 1:40 AM), and since MLB games tend to last around 3 hours, you're not going to make it unless it's a pitcher's duel. The next train leaves at 3:15 AM (arriving in New York at 6:40 AM), but do you really want to be in downtown D.C. from 10 at night to 3 in the morning?
Better to go for a weekend series, to come down on Friday afternoon or early on a Saturday, get a hotel, enjoy the sights on Saturday afternoon, see the game on Saturday night, and then on Sunday, choose between going to a 2nd game and seeing something away from downtown. You'll be glad you did.
The bar 51st State, at 2512 L Street NW, was a known hangout for Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks and Rangers fans (no mention of the Nets, Islanders or Devils, though), but it closed in early 2017. A bar named Rebellion is said to be a Mets fan bar. 1836 18th Street NW. Metro: Red to Dupont Circle. Nanny O'Brien's is said to be a football Giants fan bar. 3319 Connecticut Ave NW. Metro: Red to Cleveland Park.
If you visit D.C. during the European soccer season, which is currently winding down, the 2 best "football pubs" in town are the aforementioned Fado, and Lucky Bar, at 1221 Connecticut Ave. NW (Red Line to Farragut North).
Sidelights. On November 30, 2018, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and Washington came in 7th. Washington's sports history is long, but not good. The Redskins haven't won a World Championship in 26 seasons; the Bullets/Wizards, 39 seasons; the Capitals, never yet in 44 years; all of its baseball teams combined, 94 years (yes, ninety-four). But if you have the time, there are sites are worth checking.
There aren't a whole lot of sites in the District related to baseball other than Nationals Park itself. The Ellipse, just south of the White House on the National Mall, has baseball fields. (If you've ever seen the original 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, that's where Klaatu's ship landed.)
* American League Park. The National League version of the Washington Senators was contracted after the 1899 season, but when the American League declared itself "major" in 1901, it raided NL rosters. Since the NL still held the lease on Boundary Field, it refused to let the AL's newly-formed Senators play there. So they set up shop at a makeshift wooden stadium, also on Florida Avenue, but 2 miles southeast, at the intersection of Trinidad Avenue NE, at I (Eye) Street.
In 1903, the Leagues made peace, and the NL allowed the AL Senators to buy Boundary Park, which they renamed American League Park. The previous AL Park was demolished by 1907, and a fire station now occupies the site. 1326 Florida Avenue NE. Metrobus D8 stops across the street.
* Griffith Stadium. There were 2 ballparks on this site. The 1st was named Boundary Field, and hosted baseball from 1891 to 1910. This is where Walter Johnson played his 1st 4 seasons, 1907 to 1910, and where President Taft began the tradition of the President throwing out the first ball to open the season, in 1910.
On March 17, 1911, the park burned down. It was rebuilt in concrete and steel -- as would New York's Polo Grounds after it burned down a month later -- and by Opening Day, a stadium seating 16,000 was in place.
It would be July 24 before construction was declared finished, resulting in what would later be renamed Griffith Stadium, after Clark Griffith, once a great pitcher for the team now known as the Chicago Cubs, manager of the AL's 1st Pennant winner with the Chicago White Sox in 1901, and the 1st manager of the New York Highlanders -- the Yankees -- from 1903 to 1908. He became the Senators' manager in 1912, and bought the team in 1920, renaming the stadium for himself.
The Negro Leagues' Homestead Grays also played a lot of home games at Griffith, although they divided their "home games" between Washington and Pittsburgh. Think of the Grays as the original Harlem Globetrotters, who called themselves "Harlem" to identify themselves as a black team even though their original home base was Chicago (and later moved their offices to Los Angeles, and are now based in Phoenix). Other Negro League teams playing there were the Washington Potomacs (1924), the Washington Pilots (1932), the Washington Elite Giants (1936-37, then moving to Baltimore), and the Washington Black Senators (1938).
The Washington Redskins played at Griffith Stadium from 1937 to 1960, and won the NFL Championship while playing there in 1937 and 1942, although only the '42 title game was played there. There was another NFL title game played there, in 1940, but the Redskins were beaten by the Chicago Bears – 73-0. (Nope, that's not a typo: Seventy-three to nothing. Most points by one team in one game in NFL history, slightly ahead of the 'Skins' 72-41 victory over the Giants at RFK in 1966.)
A pro football team called the Washington Senators played there from 1921 until 1941 (when the manpower shortage of World War II forced them out of business), but only in that 1st season, 1921, did they play in the NFL.
The University of Maryland played its home football games at Griffith in 1948 and 1949, while their old Byrd Stadium was demolished and rebuilt (the "new" one since renamed Maryland Stadium). Georgetown University and George Washington University played home games there from 1925 to 1950. It hosted a fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World on May 23, 1941: Joe Louis defended the title by knocking Jacob "Buddy" Baer (brother of former Champion Max) out in the 1st round.
By the time Clark Griffith died in 1955, passing the team to his son Calvin, the area around Griffith Stadium had become nearly all-black. While Clark, despite having grown up in segregated Missouri during the 19th Century, followed Branch Rickey's path and integrated his team sooner than most (in particular going for Cubans, white and black alike), Calvin was a bigot who wanted to move the team to mostly-white Minnesota.
When the new stadium was built, it was too late to save the original team, and the "New Senators" were born. They played their 1st season, 1961, at Griffith, before moving to the new stadium. Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965, and Howard University Hospital is there now. Florida & Georgia Avenues NW. Green Line to Shaw-Howard University Station.
Howard's baseball field, named for D.C. native Maury Wills, is at 7th Street and Barry Place. Its 10,000-seat William H. Green Stadium is further up, at 6th and Girard Streets. Howard has won the National Championship of black college football 7 times: 1920, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1987, 1993 and 1996.
A monument to Walter Johnson was placed outside Griffith Stadium, and has been moved to Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland. 6400 Rock Spring Drive. Red Line to Grosvenor, then Number 47 bus. Johnson is buried in Rockville Cemetery. Baltimore Road. Red Line to Rockville, then Number 45 bus.
Griffith Stadium also had a monument to its namesake, who is buried at Fort Lincoln Cemetery, at 3401 Bladensburg Road, in Brentwood, Maryland, about 4 miles northeast of Union Station. Red Line to Rhode Island Avenue, then Bus T18 to 38th Avenue & Bladensburg Road.
* Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. Originally named District of Columbia Stadium (or "D.C. Stadium"), the Redskins played there first, from 1961 to 1996. The new Senators opened there in 1962, and President John F. Kennedy threw out the first ball at the stadium that would be renamed for his brother Bobby in 1969. (There was a JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, formerly Municipal Stadium, where the new arena, the Wells Fargo Center, now stands.)
The Nats played the 2005, '06 and '07 seasons at RFK. D.C. United, the most successful franchise in Major League Soccer (although they're lousy at the moment), have played there since MLS was founded in 1996, winning the league title, the MLS Cup, 4 times, including 3 of the 1st 4, and were the 1st U.S.-based team to win the tournament now known as the CONCACAF Champions League, in 1998. Previously, in the North American Soccer League, RFK was home to the Washington Diplomats, featuring the late Dutch legend Johan Cruyff. And the Beatles played there on their final tour, on August 15, 1966.
DC/RFK Stadium was the 1st U.S. stadium specifically designed to host both baseball and football, and anything else willing to pay the rent. But I forgive it. It was a great football stadium, and it's not a bad soccer stadium, but for baseball, let's just say Nationals Park is a huge improvement. And what is with that whacked-out roof?
No stadium has hosted more games of the U.S. national soccer team than RFK: 26. (Next-closest is the Los Angeles Coliseum, with 20.) Their record there is 16 wins, 7 draws and 3 losses. So RFK is thus the closest America comes to having a "national stadium" like Wembley or the Azteca. The most recent match there was on October 11, 2016, a 1-1 draw in a friendly with New Zealand.
I was there on June 2, 2013, for the 100th Anniversary match for the U.S. Soccer Federation. It was a 4-3 win over a Germany team operating at half-power because their players from Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund had so recently played the UEFA Champions League Final. It hosted 5 matches of the 1994 World Cup and 6 of the 2003 Women's World Cup.
RFK Stadium also hosted 1 Championship of the old North American Soccer League, Soccer Bowl '80. The New York Cosmos beat the Fort Lauderdale Strikers 3-0. One fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World was held there: Riddick Bowe defended it, and knocked Jesse Ferguson out there in the 2nd round on May 22, 1993.
In the film X-Men: Days of Future Past, CGI was used to show RFK Stadium as it would have looked in 1973, and Magneto (played in that time period by Michael Fassbender) lifted it off its foundations and dropped its (mostly) circular form around the White House, 3 1/2 miles away.
All the teams that called RFK Stadium home have moved on, but there is no plan to demolish and replace it. 2400 East Capitol Street SE. Orange Line or Blue Line to Stadium-Armory. (The D.C. Armory, headquarters of the District of Columbia National Guard, is that big brown arena-like thing across the parking lot.)
* Audi Field. The new stadium for D.C. United is now under construction at Buzzard Point, on land bounded by R, 2nd, T & Half Streets SW. The official address is 32 R Street SW, and 2 blocks of Potomac Avenue separate it from Nationals Park. It is scheduled to open on July 14, and DCU will be playing home games at the Maryland SoccerPlex until then. (See below.)
* Uline Arena/Washington Coliseum. This building was home to the District's 1st NBA team, the Washington Capitols, from 1946 to 1951. They reached the 1949 NBA Finals, losing to the Minneapolis Lakers of George Mikan, and were the 1st pro basketball team coached by Red Auerbach, who'd played in the city for George Washington University. Firing him was perhaps the dumbest coaching change in NBA history: By the time Red coached the Boston Celtics to their 1st NBA title in 1957, the Capitols had been out of business for 6 years.
The Coliseum was last used for sports in 1970 by the Washington Caps (not "Capitols," not "Capitals," just "Caps") of the ABA. It was the site of the 1st Beatles concert in the U.S. (aside from their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show 2 nights before), on February 11, 1964.
It still stands, and its interior and grounds are used as a parking lot, particularly for people using nearby Union Station. Unfortunately, it's in a rotten neighborhood, and I wouldn't recommend visiting at night. In fact, unless you're a student of NBA history or a Beatlemaniac, I'd say don't go at all. 1140 3rd Street NE, at M Street. Red Line to Union Station, and then it’s a bit of a walk.
* Capital Centre site. From 1973 to 1997, this was the home of the NBA's Washington Bullets, who became the Wizards when they moved downtown. From 1974 to 1997, it was the home of the NHL's Washington Capitals. The Bullets played in the 1975, '78 and '79 NBA Finals there, although they've only won in 1978 and clinched that at the Seattle Kingdome.
The Cap Centre was also the home for Georgetown University basketball, in its glory years of Coach John Thompson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and Allen Iverson. Remember those 1980s battles with the St. John's teams of Louie Carnesecca, Chris Mullin and Walter Berry?
Muhammad Ali defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World there twice, both times winning by decision: Over Jimmy Young on May 30, 1976; and over Alfredo Evangelista on May 16, 1977.
Elvis Presley sang there on June 27, 1976 and on May 22 and 29, 1977. (He never gave a concert in the District.) It was demolished in 2002, and a shopping mall, The Boulevard at the Capital Centre, was built on the site. 1 Harry S Truman Drive, Landover, Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside the Capital Beltway. Blue Line to Largo Town Center station.
* Capital One Arena. Opened in 1997 as the MCI Center, and known as the Verizon Center from 2006 until 2017, the NBA's Wizards, the NHL's Capitals, the WNBA's Washington Mystics, and the Georgetown basketball team have played here since it opened.
Unless you count the NCAA's 2009 Frozen Four hockey finals, only one Finals has been held here, the Caps' 1998 sweep at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings. (Georgetown has reached a Final Four since it opened, but those are held at neutral sites.) But it's a very good arena. 601 F Street NW, at 6th Street. Red, Green or Yellow Line to Gallery Place-Chinatown Station.
* FedEx Field. Originally known as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, for the Redskins owner who built it and died just before its opening, it has been the home of the Redskins since 1997. RFK Stadium has just 56,000 seats and was the NFL's smallest facility for years, but with close seats even in the upper deck, it provided one hell of a home field advantage.
In contrast, FedEx seats 85,000, the largest seating capacity in the NFL (the arch-rival Dallas Cowboys' new stadium can fit in 110,000 with standing room but has "only" 80,000 seats), but the seats are so far back, it kills the atmosphere. Being out in the suburbs instead of in a hard part of the District doesn't exactly intimidate the opposition, either. (Think if the New Jersey Devils had been an old team, starting out in an old arena tucked away in a neighborhood in Newark, and then moved to the spartan parking lot of the Meadowlands, and were still there, rather than going back to Newark into the Prudential Center.)
As a result, the Redskins went from 5 Super Bowl appearances, winning 3, while playing at RFK to just 5 Playoff berths and no visits to the NFC Championship Game since moving to FedEx.
The Army-Navy Game was played at FedExField in 2011. So far, the U.S. soccer team has played just 1 match at the stadium, a draw with Brazil on May 30, 2012. There were 4 matches played there in the 1999 Women's World Cup.
European soccer clubs Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax Amsterdam, Internazionale Milano, Juventus, Manchester United and Chelsea have played summer tour games there. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup. It's hosted concerts by Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Metallica.
1600 FedEx Way, Landover, practically right across the Beltway from the site of the Cap Centre, although you'd have to walk from there after taking the Blue Line to Largo Town Center in order to reach it without a car.
* Maryland SoccerPlex. The Washington Spirit of the National Women's Soccer League play here, at the main field, with a stadium with 4,000 seats. D.C. United are also using it this season, until Audi Field is ready. 18031 Central Park Circle, in Boyds, Montgomery County, Maryland, about 30 miles northwest of downtown D.C. You'd need the DC Metro and 2 buses to get there without a car.
* Site of Brookland Stadium. Seating 30,000, this was the football field of The Catholic University of America (CUA) from 1924 to 1983. It hosted the 2nd leg of the 1970 North American Soccer League Final. (No one had the guts to call it the Soccer Bowl until 1975.) The Washington Darts beat the Rochester Lancers 3-1, but lost 4-3 on aggregate.
Its replacement, Cardinal Stadium, opened soon after Brookland's final event, CUA's "Holy War" victory over Georgetown. Brookland was demolished in 1985, and the Columbus School of Law was built on the site. 3600 John McCormack Drive NE, off Michigan Avenue.
The University of Maryland, inside the Beltway at College Park, 10 miles northeast of Nationals Park, can be accessed by the Green Line to College Park and then a shuttle bus. (I tried that for the 2009 Rutgers-Maryland game, and it works very well.) Maryland Stadium (formerly Byrd Stadium) is one of the nation's best college football stadiums, but I wouldn't recommend sitting in the upper deck if you're afraid of heights: I think it's higher than Shea's was.
Across from the stadium is Cole Field House, where UMd played its basketball games from 1955 to 2002. The 1966 and 1970 NCAA Championship basketball games were played there, the 1966 one being significant because Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) played an all-black starting five against Kentucky's all-white starters (including future Laker, Knick and Heat coach Pat Riley and Denver Nuggets star Dan Issel). In the 1970 Final, UCLA beat Jacksonville University.
Elvis sang there on September 27 and 28, 1974. The Terrapins won the National Championship in their final season at Cole, and moved to the adjacent Xfinity Center thereafter.
Remember that Final Four run by George Mason University? They're across the Potomac River, at the EagleBank Arena, formerly the Patriot Center. 4500 Patriot Circle, in Fairfax, Virginia. Orange Line to Virginia Square-GMU.
I also recommend visiting the capital's museums, including the Smithsonian complex, whose most popular buildings are the National Archives, hosting the originals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; and the National Air and Space Museum, which includes the Wright Brothers' Flyer, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Chuck Yeager's Glamorous Glennis (the 1st plane to break the sound barrier), and several space capsules including Apollo 11. The Smithsonian also has an annex at Dulles International Airport out in Virginia, including a Concorde, the space shuttle Discovery, and the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the 1st atomic bomb.
One of the 1960 Presidential Debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was held in Washington -- still the only Presidential Debate held in the capital. On October 7, it was hosted not in a sports arena, a theater or a college auditorium, but in front of no live audience other than the panelists and the TV crew, at the studios of the NBC affiliate, WRC, Channel 4, 4001 Nebraska Avenue NW. Red Line to Tenleytown-AU.
In spite of what some movies have suggested, you won't see a lot of tall buildings in the District. The Washington Monument is 555 feet high, but, other than that, no building is allowed to be taller than the Capitol. Exceptions were made for two churches, the Washington National Cathedral and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the Old Post Office Pavilion was built before the "unwritten law" went into effect. In contrast, there are a few office buildings taller than most D.C. buildings across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, and in the neighboring Maryland cities of Silver Spring and New Carrollton.
If you're into looking up "real" TV locations, the Jeffersonian Institute on Bones is almost certainly based on the Smithsonian. And the real NCIS headquarters is a short walk from Nationals Park, on Sicard Street between Patterson and Paulding Sts. Whether civilians will be allowed on the Navy Yard grounds, I don't know; I've never tried it. I don't want to get stopped by a guard. I also don't want to get "Gibbs-slapped" -- and neither do you.
Of course, The West Wing was based at the White House, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Metro: Red Line to Metro Center. (The only character to be a D.C. native was Charlie Young, played by Dulé Hill -- in real life, a native of Sayreville, New Jersey.) The best-known D.C.-based show that didn't directly deal with government officials was Murphy Brown. The FYI studio was said to be across the street from Phil's, whose address was given as 1195 15th St. NW. Neither the bar nor the address actually exist, but if the address did, it would be at 15th & M Streets. This would put it right down the block from 1150 15th, the headquarters of The Washington Post. Metro for both: Red Line to Metro Center.
Being the Nation's Capital, D.C. has lots of Presidential-themed locations, aside from the White House. Mount Vernon, which now has a George Washington Presidential Library and Museum on the grounds, at 3200 Mount Vernon Highway in Alexandria, Virginia. Red Line to Metro Center, then, at 15th Street & New York Avenue NW, you can catch Bus 11Y, which will go right there.
After the White House was burned by the British Army on August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812, President James Madison and his wife Dolley moved into a house now known as the Octagon Museum, and stayed there for the rest of their term, with successors James and Elizabeth Monroe moving back into the White House in 1817. 1799 New York Avenue NW, 2 blocks west of the White House. Blue or Orange Line to Farragut West.
At the same time, Monroe was both Secretary of State and Secretary of War (the post we now call Secretary of Defense), and lived at 2017 I Street (Eye). Blue or Orange Line to Foggy Bottom-GWU. When he became President, his Secretary of State was John Quincy Adams, and, before he became the next President he lived a block away at 2133 I Street.
As Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State and then Vice President, future President Martin Van Buren lived at what's now 748 Jackson Place, 2 blocks north of the White House. As a federal official in the 1890s, Theodore Roosevelt lived down the block, at 736 Jackson Place.
Brown's Indian Queen Hotel was where John Tyler in 1841 and Millard Fillmore in 1850 were living when they became President when their predecessors died. The offices of the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys, and the Capital Grille restaurant, are on the site now. 601 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Three blocks down, at 300 Pennsylvania, the National Gallery of Art Library was built on the site of the house where James K. Polk lived when he was Speaker of the House. Metro: Green or Yellow Line to Archives-Navy Memorial.
The Library of Congress – the current building, a.k.a. the Jefferson Building – is not only one of America's holiest sites in its own right, but it was built on the site of the house where Abraham Lincoln stayed during his 1 term in Congress (1847-48). 101 Independence Avenue South.
When Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson, the new President, was staying at Kirkwood House, at 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. An office building and a Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse are on the site now. They're across from the Old Post Office Pavilion, now one of Donald Trump's money-laundering hotels. Metro: Blue or Orange to Federal Triangle.
Three blocks up, at 1401 Pennsylvania, is the Willard Hotel. The current version of this legend went up in 1901, replacing the 1847 version that was where Ulysses S. Grant stayed as General-in-Chief – making it, in effect, the Civil War's Pentagon. Metro: Red, Blue or Orange to Metro Center.
When Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson, the new President, was staying at Kirkwood House, at 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. An office building and a Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse are on the site now. They're across from the Old Post Office Pavilion, now one of Donald Trump's money-laundering hotels. Metro: Blue or Orange to Federal Triangle.
Three blocks up, at 1401 Pennsylvania, is the Willard Hotel. The current version of this legend went up in 1901, replacing the 1847 version that was where Ulysses S. Grant stayed as General-in-Chief – making it, in effect, the Civil War's Pentagon. Metro: Red, Blue or Orange to Metro Center.
Between the end of the war in 1865, and taking office as President in 1869, Grant lived at what's now called the Scott-Grant House, at 3238 R Street NW, in the Georgetown section of town. You'll have to take Metrobus DCWE to get there, and to any Georgetown location. This includes the various homes of John F. Kennedy between his 1946 election to Congress and his 1960 election as President: 1528 31st Street, 1400 34th Street, 3260 N Street, 3271 P Street, 3321 Dent Place, 2808 P Street and 3307 N Street.
The Cleveland Park area, reached by the Red Line at the stop bearing the name, includes several Presidential residences. Grover Cleveland's "Summer White House" was at 3600 Newark Street; Lyndon Johnson lived at Woodley Park Towers while he was Senate Majority Leader from 1953 to 1960, 2737 Devonshire Place; and Richard Nixon lived at 3601 Connecticut Avenue while serving in Congress. The next stop up on the Red Line is Woodley Park-Zoo. As a Senator, Harry Truman lived at 4701 Connecticut Avenue.
The Riggs Building was built on the site of the Riggs House, where Benjamin Harrison lived as a Senator. 615 G Street. Red Line to Union Station. While serving in Congress, William McKinley stayed in a hotel where the National Press Club has since been built. 529 14th Street. Red Line to Metro Center.
The Dupont Circle area, reached by the Red Line at the stop bearing the name, includes several such homes. While Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Howard Taft lived at what's now the Syrian Embassy. 2215 Wyoming Avenue. Warren Harding lived a block away at 2314 Wyoming. The only post-Presidential home to be an official historic site in the District is the Woodrow Wilson House at 2340 S Street. In the Cabinet in the 1920s, Herbert Hoover lived at 2300 S. While stationed in D.C. from 1927 to 1936, Dwight D. Eisenhower lived at 2022 Columbia Road.
From 1955 until he became President in 1974, including his tenures as House Minority Leader (1965-73) and Vice President (1973-74), Gerald Ford lived in the Virginia suburbs, at 514 Crown View Drive in Arlington. Yellow Line to King Street. As with his (and Ford's) fellow Yalie Taft, George H.W. Bush lived in what's now an Embassy, Algeria's, during his Congressional (1965-70) and Ambassadorial (1971-75) and CIA Directorial (1976-77) service. 5161 Palisade Lane. Metrobus D6. And the Naval Observatory has been the official Vice Presidential residence since 1974. 3450 Massachusetts Avenue. Metrobus N4.
Barack and Michelle Obama rented a house in Washington to use while daughter Malia finished high school. They have since gone back to Chicago with younger daughter Sasha, but the house is still a private residence, and I won't list the address here. Same with the house that Bill and Hillary Clinton have in the District.
Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981. 1919 Connecticut Avenue. Red to Dupont Circle. His life was saved at George Washington University Hospital. 900 23rd Street. Blue or Orange Line to Foggy Bottom-GWU. That's also the station for the nearby John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (2700 F Street) and the Watergate complex (700 New Hampshire Avenue) -- Kennedy and Nixon, forever linked.
Ironically, given its status as land seized from Robert E. Lee's family and its establishment as a cemetery for the Union dead of the American Civil War, the street it's on is the Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington, Virginia; however, like all federal installations in Arlington, it has Washington, D.C. as its official mailing address.
Have fun in the Nation's Capital. And if Teddy wins, that's okay. If the Nats win, well, maybe not. But a loss in Washington is usually a better experience than even a win in Philly.